republicans and joined obama to extend the bush era tax rates. first time university law professor looked at the history of the alternative minimum task -- tax. cluster e-mails, phone calls and tweets. tuesday at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. more about the tax loopholes and deductions that could be involved in negotiations over the fiscal cliff. from our special washington journal series, this is 50 mins. >> we turn our attention today to deductions and tax -- tax loopholes. joining us to talk about this is john mckennan, thank you for being here. what are loopholes and deductions? we hear those words a lot. guest: loopholes or tax breaks of all different sorts. whether you like a particular loophole or not depends on where you sit. there are lots of loopholes that are deductions. deductions are the ones most people are familiar with. the big itemize deductions are things like a home mortgage interest deduction. there is one for state and local taxes that is very important. the deduction for charitable contributions. then they're all kinds of oth